My wife has been an unofficial carer for our neighbour for about 8 years. He is 87, and had cancer of the bowel, and she started caring for him when he came home after his operation. He now has a stoma bag and has always had problems concerning the use and cleaning of said bag and general associated personal hygiene. Recently he has been diagnosed with early onset dementia and his short term memory is poor, but ha can regale us for hours about his early life on the fringes of showbiz and the big stars of the fifties that he supported.
Cut to the present and he is in a very poor state of health and has been in hospital on three occasions over the past two weeks, for infections related to poor hygiene, but is sent home usually the next day with antibiotics but is so confused that he doesn't take them properly and so repeats all of the above.
He sometimes shouts at my wife because she tries to get him to eat some nourishing food, he generally lives on biscuits and pot noodles or occasionally a frozen meal. Social Care, Voice Ability, (a patient advocacy service in Northamptonshire) Age Concern and his GP on three occasions, and they all say he must request help before he can be compelled to accept care or a move to a more appropriate setting. Over the past year my wife has cleaned poo from the living room carpet, his toilet and bath and had to bin towels that were covered in poo. Last week she found some of his medication in his stoma bag, but had to bin it.
I am sure you can imagine that my AIBU, is why won't anyone in the health service do something to prevent him from coming to harm before it is too late. This week he had a district nurse visit on two days but she signed him off saying that he was fit and able to look after his own welfare, he is very good at saying what they want to hear. The nurse didn't even realise that my wife had his antibiotic tablets in our house because he had only taken one tablet in three days whilst we were in Wales. So she now goes in in the morning and evening to make sure that he takes the full course and hopefully gets better. Sorry this is so long, but we have been neighbours for over forty years and we don't wan't him to go downhill again or come to harm.